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Suggestions & Ideas / The question of RACE.
« on: August 31, 2011, 07:33:54 pm »
I am officially looking for input on races.
What do we do with them?
Personally I hate them all and think they should go, but that's what this thread is here to discuss.
Right now characters are basically pigeonholed into a style of play before they even know how to play thanks to the attributes their race has. For example an elf like myself has +speed, +magic damage and +attack, and then less melee damage and defense to compensate.
That doesn't make me any stronger or weaker (theoretically), just less flexible, which seems silly in a world with so much wonderful potential for flexibility.
Beyond that there are also imbalances between the races and whispered rules about which ones are the best and worst and so on. For something basically set in stone that's a flaw.
(Don't get me started on the flimsy Gringo/Indian premise, and of all the possible aliens out there we chose furries and martians..? All the rest... meh. But that's neither here nor there.)
Possible solutions to the actual mechanics:
Remove race attributes, leaving all with a horizontal base a la gringo/indian. This would be easy and I think it should be done.
Add an inbuilt mechanic along the lines of a bioengineering lab for changing race. That's also easy and also should be looked at ASAP in my opinion.
Beyond that, a bioengineering/cybernetics lab would open up a lot of options for race/character augmentations available to EVERYONE and not decided upon at creation. I think a set of chop&changeable wear_locs would be a good solution to imbalances between races (aside from neutering the attributes that is) and also quite cool.
What are peoples' thoughts?
What do we do with them?
Personally I hate them all and think they should go, but that's what this thread is here to discuss.
Right now characters are basically pigeonholed into a style of play before they even know how to play thanks to the attributes their race has. For example an elf like myself has +speed, +magic damage and +attack, and then less melee damage and defense to compensate.
That doesn't make me any stronger or weaker (theoretically), just less flexible, which seems silly in a world with so much wonderful potential for flexibility.
Beyond that there are also imbalances between the races and whispered rules about which ones are the best and worst and so on. For something basically set in stone that's a flaw.
(Don't get me started on the flimsy Gringo/Indian premise, and of all the possible aliens out there we chose furries and martians..? All the rest... meh. But that's neither here nor there.)
Possible solutions to the actual mechanics:
Remove race attributes, leaving all with a horizontal base a la gringo/indian. This would be easy and I think it should be done.
Add an inbuilt mechanic along the lines of a bioengineering lab for changing race. That's also easy and also should be looked at ASAP in my opinion.
Beyond that, a bioengineering/cybernetics lab would open up a lot of options for race/character augmentations available to EVERYONE and not decided upon at creation. I think a set of chop&changeable wear_locs would be a good solution to imbalances between races (aside from neutering the attributes that is) and also quite cool.
What are peoples' thoughts?